Prosecutors with the Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) abruptly ended the CannTrust trial on December 14, ending two and a half years of legal proceedings. How – and why – it got to this point is not clear. But defence lawyers for the three CannTrust officials, Peter Aceto, Eric Paul and Mark Litwin, said they want their clients acquitted, not just have charges dropped.Apparently, the OSC decided that it didn’t have enough evidence to gain a conviction in the CannTrust trial. "After careful review of the evidence during the trial, we are of the view that as charged, there is no reasonable prospect of conviction," said OSC lawyer Dihim Emami.The CannTrust team immediately asked for acquittal “today”. "I'm respectfully against drawing this out,” Scott Fenton, Litwin’s lawyer, asked the judge. “It's time to end it for all the gentlemen."Emami asked some time be given for him to consider the defendants’ request.The reason behind the abrupt end of the CannTrust trial aren’t spelled out. But they boil down to this: what once was considered illegally deceiving shareholders may have been a simple misunderstanding of the Health Canada licences. It’s a misunderstanding that cost many people billions of dollars and brought down one of the largest cannabis companies in Canadian history resulting in stock exchange delisting in Toronto and New York. How We Got to the CannTrust Trial and What Now – LPCThe road to the CannTrust trial is long. On July 12, 2019, CannTrust was first threatened with production licence suspension for misleading Health Canada. At this point CEO Peter Aceto was fired. The CannTrust licences were reinstated just over a year later in August 2020. In December 2020, CannTrust launched new cannabis brands aimed at the recreational market. But the damage had been done, and the company was never able to recover.That wasn’t the end for the three CannTrust officials. RCMP and OSC charged them with various offences including fraud and insider trading. Specifically, the charges claim that the officials knowingly used unlicensed room why telling shareholders – including US investors – that the company was fully licensed and compliant.However, the defence presented evidence that the facility was licensed and compliant all along. Point of fact: its Health Canada production licences didn’t restrict where in the facility cannabis could be grown, and where it couldn’t. Further, even though the facility as a whole wasn’t technically fully licensed, the remaining areas only needed “routine approvals” from Health Canada. That’s a far cry from growing cannabis illegally in unlicensed spaces.Today, most of CannTrust’s assets are held by Phoena Holdings Inc., a new company owned by a Dutch-based equity firm. CannTrust still has 10 per cent of the company, but is looking to divest itself of those shares to current Phoena shareholders.So what happened in the CannTrust trial? It’s hard to know for sure yet. Chances are, there is much more information to come. Whether it truly was a misunderstanding between CannTrust, Health Canada, the RCMP, and the OSC or if it was clever loophole-finding by the defence – hopefully the public finds out soon. But either way, perhaps it’s a signal that Health Canada – and the Cannabis Act – needs more streamlining so that unnecessary uncertainties like these don’t happen again.Read the CBC Article Here ADD YOUR STORY HERE Do you have a business in Canada’s legal cannabis market? Are you a craft cannabis producer or own a chain or independent cannabis retail store? Let’s tell your story here! A news article and your approved listing page make great ways to connect your brand with a qualified audience looking for what you are offering. Learn more about submitting your article to LPC.